


Circles

by laugh_a_latte



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Christine makes a friend, Depressed Michael, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied boyf riends, Michael makes a friend, One Shot, Oops, Screaming to the Void, Theatre, this was supposed to be fluff i don't know what happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 17:57:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18696472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laugh_a_latte/pseuds/laugh_a_latte
Summary: Christine asks Michael if he's okay.





	Circles

“Michael?”

Michael slides his headphones off, surprised to see Christine standing next to him. He pauses with a binder halfway pulled out of his locker, glancing over his shoulder expecting to see Jeremy, but he’s not there. He's not behind his locker, either. Just Christine. 

“ 'Sup,” he smiles at her, even though he’s freaking out a little on the inside, unsure of what she wants or why she’s talking to him.

“Are you okay?”

Michael’s eyebrows come together as this weird feeling washes over him. He pulls another binder out of his locker and bends down to jam them into his backpack as he considers this conversation topic.

No one at school has ever really asked him if he was okay, and Michael's never really thought twice about that. After all, he's never asked them, either, and why should he? The only person's okayness he wonders about and tries to actively improve is Jeremy's. And even when the question is asked, it's usually just implied. And that's not to say he doesn't care about his classmates' respective okayness, he wants everyone to be okay, of _course._ And, wait. Michael's avoiding the question.

And, wait. Michael realizes why he feels so weird. This is the first time Christine has talked to him without the presence of Jeremy. Michael stands up quickly and looks at her, bewildered with the realization, unsure of how to answer.

“Yeah, I’m great,” he says in defense. If Jeremy's not here, then he's not her motive. Which makes her motive _unknown._

There’s no way she could be mocking him . . . No, Christine’s not the type. Michael doesn’t think.

“You seem a little . . .” Christine tilts her head from side to side, trying to find the word. “Distracted? No.” Christine looks him up and down. Oh, no, Michael does not like that one bit. He slings his backpack over one shoulder and shuts his locker.

“See you, Christine,” he says, turning to walk the other way.

“Michael, wait!” Christine grabs his wrist, which stops Michael, but only because he can’t believe someone would just grab another person like that, especially when said person hates being grabbed and extra especially by the wrist.

Michael spins around so quickly, his glasses nearly fly off his nose. He pulls his arm away from Christine’s grip, not at all gently, to shove them back in place.

“Oh!” Christine opens and closes her hand before she drops it. “My bad, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Hold up. That was an apology. Christine just apologized for grabbing him. That gets Michael. It’s really weird to have someone apologize for their sudden and unexpected contact instead of the usual stare and scoff response, like _Michael's_ the freak for not liking sudden and unexpected contact.

“That’s okay,” he says, once again too surprised for anything else.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to bother you, or anything? But I just wanted to . . . You don’t seem like yourself today.”

Michael takes in Christine. Her eyes are neutral. She’s not smirking. Her tone is even. No red flags. She’s completely sincere, no mockery at all. Michael notices the patches on her jean jacket. Another person of culture. Michael sighs.

“I don’t know, today just hasn’t been the best, you know?”

Christine wraps her arms behind her back and tilts her head at him. Michael thinks fleetingly of a puppy. “Do you want to talk about it?” 

Okay, yeah, no.

“You can’t be serious,” Michael shakes his head. “You don’t really want to hear about my day.”

Michael flinches. That came out more abrasive then he meant, but seriously. She can’t seriously want to hear about _his_ day,

Christine gives him this odd look that Michael can’t figure out, but it’s gone before he gets a chance and maybe Michael just imagined it. “Yes, I do,” Christine nods, then her lips tilt up in a smirk and she gets this glint in her eye. “I also have a really good method for getting stress out. Works like a charm every time.”

And that’s how Michael finds himself in the theatre after school instead of in his basement getting stoned, for the first time since eighth grade. It’s weird and new and different and Michael doesn’t quite know if he likes that yet. And everything feels slightly off kilter, like Michael’s looking through glasses with an out of date prescription.

“First we’ll do the thing,” Christine says as she skips up the steps to the stage. “Then we’ll maybe talk a bit.” Michael glares at the stage. Empty, save for a light coating of sawdust and a pole with a light bulb perched on top. It’s odd. Michael’s never seen it so vacant. “Be warned, though, I can talk a lot.”

The stage looks so different from what he's used to, and Michael feels unsettled. He looks away to put his backpack down on the faded green seats of the house, wondering who thought kelly green was a good color for a theatre. Not cute.

“Come up here!” Christine calls from center stage. The acoustics of the room carry the sound clearly to Michael without her having to shout.

Michael looks at the steps, apprehensive for no discernible reason. Then realizes he’s _staring at stairs._ He shakes his head and takes them one at a time until he is standing on this wooden stage. His sneakers scuff and misplace some sawdust. Michael watches it dissipate, then pulls his eyes up to the empty audience. Empty and quiet, save for this invisible static in the air. Michael doesn’t understand why anyone would willingly get on this stage in front of hundreds of people. It’s too much even when it’s empty. Michael jams his hands in his pockets.

The stage lights aren’t on, so it’s a little dark upstage, but the light from the house and that pole is enough. Michael shuffles awkwardly to where Christine is standing, looking out into the audience with the exact opposite expression on her face from Michael. She sighs dramatically before she wheels the pole with a lightbulb on it stage left, out of the way.

She turns around and claps her hands together, holding them in front of her chest. Michael!”

“Christine!”

“We’re going to run in circles around the stage yelling, okay?”

What.

“Sorry?”

“Just yell! It’s good for you! And run, on three!”

“Um—” Michael feels the unsettle in his chest grow.

“One!”

“Christine—” Michael looks around the space frantically.

“Two—”

“Wait!” Maybe he’s on candid camera.

“Three!” And Christine takes off. She sprints, running in a circle around Michael, her arms flailing above her head, and she is yelling. Literally yelling with her full voice. Michael, stood center stage, watches her, mouth stuck open, as she completes a full circle around him. Michael’s never seen anything like it.

“Ahhhhh! YELL, MICHAEL MELL! AHHH!” She continues. And Michael doesn’t know what else to do in this situation, so he starts running. 

And he’s yelling. This sustained sound that carries away all of the unsettled nerves and apprehension and and weird feelings as he chases Christine in a circle around the stage.

And wow. Yelling is _great._

He inhales, and yells again, louder and freer and a smile grows wide on his face. He catches Christine’s eye, and she smiles at him.

Michael inhales again. “Fuuuuuuuuck!” He yells. Christine cheers, and mimics him.

“Fuuuuuuuuck!” They’re both yelling, running in circles. Christine throws her arms back, Naruto-style and sprints. Michael copies her. And then Christine starts giggling, and Michael is so taken by the moment, that he isn’t paying attention anymore. He trips over nothing and falls hard on the floor with a lungful of sawdust. Christine stops giggling.

“Oh my God! Are you okay?”

Michael’s shoulders are shaking. Christine runs to the other side of him and drops down. The tension leaves her body when she realizes he’s laughing. She starts laughing, too.

Michael hasn’t laughed so hard in months. His abdomen hurts like hell as silent laughter escapes him.

He sits up quickly, almost knocking his forehead on Christine’s. He takes a big breath, and yells in her face, “Ahhhhhh!”

“Ahhhhhhh!” Christine repeats. Her breath smells like spearmint.

“Ahhhhhhh!” They yell, smiling at each other. Michael takes another breath. His chest hurts.

“I’m not okay!” Michael yells, flopping onto his back as the last of the laughter leaves his body, and he’s left staring at the high, high ceiling of the stage. 

Christine flops down next to him, still yelling her sustained note.

Michael takes another, staggering breath. “I’M NOT OKAAAY!”

Christine’s not yelling anymore.

“I’m not okay, God! I am SO NOT okay, CHRISTIIIIIIINE!” Michael yells, balling his fists by his side. He inhales sharply, enough to yell, but he doesn’t. “I always say I’m okay. I’m fine, I’m great, I’m good! I’m not! I’m zero of those things! Ha!” Michael inhales again much too rapidly. Christine listens. “I’ve been lying for years and no one knows it!” Michael laughs, but it ends in an unnatural pitch. “Damn it.”

Christine rolls her head to the side. Michael’s crying. Christine returns her gaze to the lighting battens, feeling like she’s seeing something she’s not allowed to see. And uh oh. Oh no, this did not go according to plan. She’s never been good with crying. She listens to him try to muffle it beside her.

“I’m sorry, this is stupid,” Michael says into his sleeve. 

“No, it’s not. It’s good. It’s great, Michael!” It's not great. “You need to cry or you’ll go crazy.”

Michael muffles another sound beside her. Christine squints at a burnt out bulb. It’s odd, what running around a stage screaming can do for some people. Sometimes Christine does this with her fellow actors at rehearsal, especially during tech week. You always need to scream into the void during tech week. Afterwards, people usually laugh, their eyes alight and steps lighter. Everyone looks like a weight has been lifted off their chest, and the relief is so great they can't help but laugh for lack of words, like Michael did. And Christine laughed, too, because that meant it was working! But no one’s ever started crying before, and Christine wonders just how heavy the weight has to be for that to happen.

Christine doesn’t say anything.

She’s really not good with crying.

“Are you okay, Christine?” He asks after several moments.

Christine rolls her head to the side again. Michael’s looking at her, rubbing at an eye with a section of his sleeve that's much too close to a spit-soaked section for comfort. Christine blinks at it, letting the question wash over her. 

The reaction to say she’s fine, or great, or amazing, is so strong. Christine pushes that away. She doesn’t have to say that to Michael.

“You know, Michael,” Christine sighs. “Everybody always assumes I’m doing great because I’m always trying to smile in the hallways and talk to everyone and just. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know if I’m okay.” Christine turns her eyes back to the ceiling. “I think I’m getting there, though. Thank you for asking.”

“Well, you asked me, first,” Michael replies.

Christine hums. The theatre is completely silent. She closes her eyes and lets it wash over her. And she feels so calm. The theatre always does that for her. This stage is her favorite spot, her refuge. Her palace. She lets the calm make it's way to her toes as she thinks.

“I feel stupid,” Christine sighs after many minutes of this.

“You’re not, but why?”

“I’m a hypocrite, aren’t I?” Christine scrunches her nose. “I just said that everyone always assumes I’m okay because I look okay at school, but I just did the same thing to you, didn’t I?”

“Er, did you?”

“Everyday at lunch, you sit at the table with this huge grin on your face. You’re always humming along to whatever’s playing in those headphones. And you always let the song finish before you take them off, which I have mad respect for, by the way,” Christine says. A huge grin, she said. That’s not quite right. It's more than just a grin. What are the words? “That look on your face. You always look like you have a secret, like the world’s best secret!” Christine throws her arms in the air above her.

“You look like . . .” What are the words? “You look like you know that everyone at the table has a surprise party waiting for them in the next room! One that they’ll love with balloons and cake and all their best friends, but you’re the only one who knows about the party. And you can’t tell anyone because it’ll spoil the party and the secret will be out. You hold all the best secrets in your smile.”

Christine rolls her head to look at him again. He is looking at her, attention so rapt and eyes so open and fragile. Unguarded. Christine can’t look at that, so she looks back at the ceiling. God, she hopes she’s doing this right.

“I never thought twice about your general okayness until today. At lunch—No humming, no music leaking from your headphones, but you kept them on the whole time anyways. You threw us this smile, but didn’t look up the rest of lunch!” It was freaky. Everyone kept exchanging these Looks with each other. “And that secret. It was gone.”

Michael is quiet beside her. Christine rolls her head over to look at him. She sees a different secret in this expression, in the crease between his eyebrows and his unfocused eyes. The tilt of his mouth and in the uneven rise and fall of his chest. This doesn’t look like a fun secret.

And, oh.

“This isn’t just a one time thing is it?” Christine asks quietly. Michael shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” Michael says. “It was all just a little too much today,” he continues lightly, pulling that same half smile. His forehead is still tense. Christine wants to reach over and smooth it out for him, but Michael doesn’t seem to like touching. Instead, Christine watches him toy with the sleeve of his hoodie. “And, um, I didn’t. I couldn’t just do the . . . Thing.”

“You couldn’t pretend anymore?” Christine offers.

Michael’s smile drops.

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

Michael pulls his sleeve hard and shakes his head.

The silence stretches between them, and Christine is at a loss for words, for the first time ever. Michael just looks so damn sad, and Christine doesn’t know how to fix it. And Christine hates not being able to fix things. If this was a one time sort of deal, Christine would take him out of here and go do something fun that was his idea and blast showtunes and distract him for the day to make him feel better, so he’d be back to his bubbly, happy self tomorrow.

But, that isn’t really Michael, is it?

“Christine?” Says Michael carefully, interrupting her thoughts.

Christine looks at him. He’s squinting at the ceiling.

“Is it okay . . . I, um. . . Can we do this again, sometime?”

And maybe this isn’t something Christine can fix, but maybe she can help. Christine likes helping her friends. And Michael is her friend. 

Besides, she wants to get to know this Michael, the one laying next to her. She has a feeling not many people have met him.

“We should totally do this again sometime.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to start with Michael's pov then shift to Christine and study her feelings about this situation. This was my first time writing Christine so hopefully that happened? This was also supposed to be fluff, then somewhere along the way my brain slipped. I also wasn't going to post this. So I'm not great at sticking to the plan, as you can see.  
> (comments really make me happy and make me write more -- constructive criticism, key mashing, all of it!)  
> (also can we talk about the obcr? They DID THAT!)  
> Thank you for reading! <3


End file.
